CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

It was the usual Tuesday. I picked Sarah up from school and brought her to the centre. I had a lesson beforehand with a kid – not particularly great – but I put my all into it to make it fun. I can see Sarah sat down, chatting away without a care in the world. “Where is the warm-up please? You’re on in 20 mins and you’re not looking too ready”. My

attention is now not on my current lesson, I’m consumed with frustration because of the lack of discipline. 10 minutes to go, still no movement... “Come off it Sarah, show me

something!” Lesson over and I chat to the parent of the child I have just coached. I gave the usual debrief but I was still distracted by the frustration with Sarah. What am I going to say to her? I have a responsibility to make sure she doesn’t skive while she is out of school. I can’t be responsible for her missing school and her not even putting the effort in as a tennis player. What will her parents think of this, am I just a soft touch? Is this just a jolly? You’re being paid to coach this kid Cal. You can’t let this slide, do something about it.

Sarah walked onto court, oblivious to my mood. I imagined all her rivals and what I thought their warm-ups would look like in the same situation. Early to practice, energetic, dynamic, organised, disciplined… Perfect. I described the scene to Sarah, over exaggerating what I imagined the perfect warm-up to be and then compared it to what I had just witnessed from her. She clearly felt that these days out of school were no more than an opportunity to skive and revel in her own self-importance. Coming out of school just to sit and chat to

whoever! Disgrace. All this effort I’ve gone to, to get you here for your tennis and that’s what you do. Fucking hell! You’re gonna know in this moment exactly how fed up I am with that lack of warm-up!

I finished my rant and left the court for Sarah to come off court on her own. I hadn’t seen her speechless for 5 years. Her eyes were red, and she made no eye contact. As I left the court the anger drained from my body, leaving only shame. Ashamed of myself for reacting in that way. Who was that speaking? Am I really that person? I sat slumped in the clubroom; deflated, conflicted, disappointed, and reflected on the performance I just put on. I went over all the negative stereotypes of performance coaches I had created over the years when I played. I ticked every box.

Reflections on Story 2.

According to Kelchtermans (2009a, 2009b) the personal interpretative framework influences a person’s actions and interactions within their social environment. My actions and interactions with Sarah and her parents were interacting with personal issues such as; self-image, self-esteem, job-motivation, task-perception, and future-perspectives. My struggles with narrative alignment in the previous story caused issues with task-perception and future perspectives. I was struggling with how I understood what I was responsible for (Sarah winning) and how I saw my role with Sarah going forwards (matching Sarah’s parent’s financial commitment with my emotional and physical commitment). I was

becoming increasingly anxious about my coaching and I did not feel able to deliver results as consistently as I wanted.

Story 2 described my narrative wreckage (Frank, 1995). My experiences with Sarah and her parents no longer fit the performance narrative, and my sense of self was threatened, causing narrative wreckage. The performance narrative that infused my coaching beliefs did

not provide a workable template for my coaching life (McLeod, 1997). I felt that I had lost control of the coaching relationship and I was insecure about the perceptions of Sarah’s parents.

Potrac and Jones (2009) illustrated that power in the coach-athlete relationship was an issue for coaches. My observations of Sarah chatting in the clubroom while she should have been warming up made me feel like I had lost some control over the coaching relationship. We had many discussions about the importance of warming up and the need to maximise on- court time by being ready to start on time. Sarah’s lack of warm up made me question who was in control of the relationship. My understanding was if the coach says warm-up then that’s what should happen. Sarah felt differently, and I believed this was a sign of my lack of authority

My previous discussions with Sarah’s dad about finances (story 1) increased the importance I attached to positive tournament results and their impact on my coaching

relationship with Sarah. Having seen Sarah’s lack of discipline towards her tennis, I believed it was necessary to show that I was in control of Sarah’s development. My interpretation was that Sarah was coming out of school to skive and this was fuelling anxiety that my authority had reduced. I believed my coaching message had diluted and Sarah saw me as a soft touch. I was fearful of how this was perceived by Sarah’s parents, who were paying for me to coach Sarah while she was out of school. My actions towards Sarah in this story stemmed from a need to perform as I imagined a performance coach should perform.

My performance was to compensate for the lack of effort I thought Sarah was showing. I was feeling insecure and ineffective because I was not able to get Sarah to conform to my performance narrative. Her lack of discipline was a sign that Sarah was not conforming to my performance narrative and matching my commitment to her and her

parents. The only thing I felt able to control was that of my own performance and can be interpreted through Goffman’s (1955) notion of face work. Goffman (1955) believed people construct and project a certain image of themselves to leave a desired impression in the eyes of others. By displaying a dominant personality and a dominant coaching style I felt I was communicating to Sarah my authority and the commitment I was showing to her tennis journey.

After my altercation with Sarah, I described leaving the court feeling “ashamed, deflated, conflicted, and disappointed” in myself. I believe this reflected narrative wreckage and I questioned the way I had behaved. My questions related to self-image and my self- confidence as a coach (Kelchtermans 2009a, 2009b). I was pre-occupied with judgements that I imagined about me as a tennis coach. I believed that Sarah and her parents would view me as a dysfluent coach because of poor results, player indiscipline, and now loss of control and negative coaching behaviours. I had behaved like the coach I swore I would never become. As I reflected on my performance while I was sat in the clubroom, I felt inadequate as a tennis coach and my self-esteem and self-confidence had reached a new low.

Jowett and Cockrell (2002) described negative coaching behaviours as “arrogant, ignorant and ultimately betray the trust that is implicit within the coach-athlete relationship” (p. 17). I knew the damage I had done to the coaching relationship with Sarah. The negative feelings I experienced as I came off court, were the realisation of the damage I had done to Sarah and her tennis. Jowett and Cockrell (2002) state that when negative coaching

behaviours occur “the athlete’s performance and general well-being are negatively affected” (p. 17).

My emotional struggles with narrative alignment were a constant source of anxiety and pressure (Thelwell et al., 2010). I was aware of the financial pressure this journey was

putting on Sarah and her parents and I felt responsible for delivering results to justify their sacrifice. My personal coaching beliefs were beginning to change, and I understood that focussing on results was counter-productive to effective coaching. However, I felt anxious that I had to make this journey worthwhile for Sarah and her parents. I still believed that I had to achieve positive results with Sarah, and I believe this contributed to my inability to replace the performance narrative with a more suitable narrative for my coaching role. Any behaviour that I thought was going to cause an obstacle to obtaining results (e.g., Sarah not warming up or showing dedication to the cause), caused narrative tension.

I believe my behaviour toward Sarah was the culmination of months of worry about poor results and constant narrative tension between my coaching role and the performance narrative that I was trying to maintain. Poor narrative alignment resulting from a lack of alternative narratives resulted in emotional challenges that proved too much for me to manage. Emotional challenges resulted in narrative wreckage and the breakdown of the coaching relationship with Sarah (Frank, 1995).